Welcome to Palm Coast Oncology, a private practice serving Flagler / Palm Coast, Florida.

Dr. Philip Ndum offers expert and professional oncologic services.

An oncologist is a physician who has attained certification by the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) and has specialized knowledge and skill with regard to the diagnosis and treatment of cancers and cancer related problems. After becoming board certified in internal medicine the physician must undergo subspecialty training for certification in medical oncology and/or hematology.

The following list includes some conditions that oncologists often diagnose and treat:

• Breast cancer

• Colon cancer

• Lung cancer

• Melanoma

• Prostate cancer

There are several types of oncology specialties, including the following:

• Gynecology

• Internal medicine

• Pediatrics

• Radiology

• Surgery

Although oncology is classified as an internal medicine subspecialty, due to the wide variety of clinical problems encountered, a knowledge of internal medicine, hematology, and other specialties is required.

As part of our commitment to patient education, we hope visitors to our site will consult the pages available from the navigation bars to find out more about our practice and other oncologic resources. Thank you for visiting our website, and please call us with any questions.

Follow-up

A large segment of the oncologist's workload is the following-up of cancer patients who have been successfully treated. As cancer therapy becomes more coordinated, early identification of recurrence will often lead to better survival and quality of life. It depends on the nature of the cancer whether the follow-up lasts a number of years (often 10 years) or remains "life long".

A specialized area of oncology is that of "secondary cancer", tumors caused by treatment for a different cancer. The rate of secondary cancer is improving as chemotherapy treatment schedules are becoming less toxic, but on the whole the incidence of cancer in previous cancer patients is substantially higher than in the general population.
 

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